Leading When You’d Rather Be Leaving
By: Tim Elmore There is a new term describing the challenge many organizations face today. It’s called absentee leadership. A leader or manager may be physically present but psychologically and emotionally absent. Why? They’re just not up to the challenge. A 2015 survey of 1,000 working adults showed that eight of the top nine complaints about leaders…
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The Need for Paradoxical Leadership
By: Tim Elmore I had an epiphany a few years ago while sitting in the green room right before I spoke at a conference. There were sixteen CEOs in the room, and I decided to turn the moment into an instant focus group. I asked these men and women if they believed that leading a…
Continue ReadingStruggling to Establish Both Relationships and Accountability with Your Students? Try Using a Social Contract.
By: Andrew McPeak Just a few weeks ago, I stood in front of almost a hundred teachers — the faculty of a mid-size high school in North Dakota. Together, we discussed methods for connecting with and leading students, and the changes that leadership in the 21st-century classroom requires. We talked about everything from student engagement,…
Continue ReadingHow to Lead Kids Who’ve Experienced Adult-Sized Trauma
By: Tim Elmore You may remember the tragic story from last April. A sixth-grader found his dad’s 9mm handgun, loaded it with a magazine of bullets, and walked onto his campus at Plymouth Middle School outside of Minneapolis. He positioned himself in a hallway, shot the gun toward the ceiling, and watched fellow students run…
Continue ReadingOne Magical Idea to Increase Student Engagement This Fall
By: Tim Elmore Building off of an earlier patent by John Duff, General Mills’ created its first Betty Crocker instant cake mix in 1947. Since the Great Depression and World War 2 were over, people were spending money again. Folks at Betty Crocker assumed that because they made baking easier sales would take off. But…
Continue ReadingFour Lessons on Leading Young People From the Tokyo Olympics
By: Tim Elmore The postponed Olympics Games held in Tokyo are now history. As always, there were highs and lows for competing athletes, but I’d like to focus on some insights we gain as we watched this year’s young athletes perform. The major difference for me in these Olympic games was the topic of mental…
Continue ReadingWhy Your Students Need a Better Emotional Vocabulary
By: Tim Elmore Two years ago, Broughal Middle School in Bethlehem, PA was in a lot of trouble. As one of the state’s “lowest-performing, poorest and most diverse schools” where “92 percent of children are economically disadvantaged and 87 percent are minorities,” the community around Broughal Middle was trying to create change to no avail.…
Continue ReadingNavigating “Compassion Fatigue” as We Enter a New School Year
By: Tim Elmore I met with fourteen C-suite-level leaders recently. They were from different industries, different age groups, different genders; but they all had something in common. When I asked them if leading people was more difficult today than it was when they first became leaders, each responded affirmatively. “Absolutely!” said one. “One hundred and…
Continue ReadingThe Comeback School: How to Be Ready When Classes Begin Again
By: Tim Elmore The news headlines were dramatic: Schools debate on whether to shut down or to stay open; students struggle with quarantine boundaries; children and teachers are expected to wear masks as infections continue to soar. Sound familiar? Did you know those headlines were from the Spanish Flu in 1918? Much like what happened…
Continue ReadingSharenting: Solving the Problem of Parents and Kids on Instagram
By: Tim Elmore It all started when April, Christine’s youngest daughter, was five years old. Christine knew April would be their family’s last baby and wanted to document each milestone and comical moment of her childhood. By the time she was ten, April was avoiding photo ops; shying away from the camera. By 13, when…
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